Constitutional Dilemmas

Conflicts of Fundamental Legal Rights in Europe and the USA

Lorenzo Zucca

Constitutional Dilemmas

Conflicts of Fundamental Legal Rights in Europe and the USA

Lorenzo Zucca

Description

This book deals with one of the most important issues of philosophy of law and constitutional thought: how to understand clashes of fundamental rights, such as the conflict between free speech and privacy. The main argument of this book is that much can be learned about the nature of fundamental legal rights by examining them through the lens of conflicts among such rights, and criticizing the views of scholars and jurists who have discussed both fundamental legal rights and the nature of conflicts among them.

Theories of rights are necessarily abstract, aiming at providing the best possible answers to pressing social problems. Yet such theories must also respond to the real and changing dilemmas of the day. Taking up the problem of conflicting rights,
Zucca seeks a theory of rights that can guide us to a richer, more responsive approach to rights discourse.

The idea of constitutional rights is one of the most powerful tools to advance justice in the Western tradition. But as this book demonstrates, even the most ambitious theory of rights cannot satisfactorily address questions of conflicting rights. How, for instance, can we fully secure privacy when it clashes with free speech? To what extent can our societies assist people in dying without compromising the protection of life? Exploring the limitations of the rights discourse in these areas, Zucca questions the role of law in settling ethical dilemmas helping to clarify thinking about the limitations of rights discourse.

Constitutional Dilemmas

Conflicts of Fundamental Legal Rights in Europe and the USA

Lorenzo Zucca

Table of Contents

I The Theory of Conflicts of Fundamental Legal Rights 1. Law, Morality, and Conflicts of Fundamental Legal Rights2. The Concept of Fundamental Legal Rights3. The Anatomy of Conflicts of Fundamental Legal Rights4. A Framework to Deal with Conflicts of Fundamental Legal RightsII The Practice of Conflicts of Fundamental Legal Rights 5. The Fundamental Legal Right to Privacy6. The Fundamental Legal Right to Informational Privacy v The Fundamental Legal Right to Free Press7. Mortal Conflicts of Fundamental Legal Rights: the Fundamental Legal Right to Life v the Fundamental Legal Right to Decisional Privacy

Constitutional Dilemmas

Conflicts of Fundamental Legal Rights in Europe and the USA

Lorenzo Zucca

Author Information

Lorenzo Zucca was appointed Lecturer in Law at the University of Aberdeen after studying at the European University Institute (Florence), the University of Oxford, and the University of Paris.